As human-caused climate change continues to warm the planet, sea levels will rise, storms will grow stronger, floods more violent and draughts harsher. All of this puts some of the world's most vulnerable people at greater risk.

Bold action to phase out HFCs could bring remarkable results. In Paris last year, leaders dared to set a goal of limiting global warming to below two degress Celsius. If we act in Kigali and phase out HFCs, scientists believe we could avoid 0.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century.

In my research on Canadian and American emergency management agencies, I've found significant differences between official disaster strategies and how disaster responses actually unfold. For example, 'lessons learned' and theories of emergency management consistently call for formal coordination of all the organizations involved in disaster response.

Earth is clearly experiencing more frequent extreme weather than in the past, and we can expect it to get worse as we burn more coal, oil and gas and pump more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This can have profound and costly impacts on everything from agriculture to infrastructure, not to mention human health and life.

There are a group of people often overlooked in the fight against climate change and they can be one of our greatest allies as we figure out how to limit the damage from extreme weather, rising seas and threats to food security. They are the millions of indigenous people who live in the world's remaining forests. Often overlooked, ignored, marginalized and attacked, they stand at the heart of a global solution on climate change that all of us, whether we live in big cities or remote villages, can benefit from.